The Roots Want Their New 'Tonight Show' Theme Sampled

At the end of Jenna Sauers' Village Voice cover story on Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Questlove once again basically confirms that The Roots will be following Jimmy Fallon to The Tonight Show in early 2014, by explaining that his next task is writing a theme song for the show.

"I feel like we have to write, we must write an iconic theme," he told Sauers. "We gotta make a theme that will make hip-hop guys want to sample it. That will make music-lovers want to hum to it when they're folding their clothes."

Currently Fallon uses The Roots' "Here I Come" off their 2006 album Game Theory, for his theme.

In the day and age of YouTube clips, it seems like a Tonight Show theme song means less than ever. Fallon's team should know this: the show's popularity was partially born out of the bits that went viral. Those do not introduce the theme, and many who watch rarely watch the entire show. But a sample-able theme makes sense for Fallon, who relies on music, if he can make his theme song essentially go viral he's golden.

Now, can you hum Rickey Minor's current theme for the Tonight Show? Yeah. We thought so.